Spider-Man Joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Grab that copy of The Daily Bugle and get ready to see pictures of your favorite web slinging hero all over the place today because Spider-Man is officially heading into the fold of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After a series of long running talks about potentially allowing the Disney owned Marvel Cinematic Universe to place the Sony Pictures owned property of Spider-Man in their sprawling cast of characters, Marvel has officially announced that a deal has been struck. The following is from the official press release.

Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.

Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.

So… this shakes things up. Well, it literally has shaken things up already. As a result of the new Spidey film coming on July 28, 2017, Thor: Ragnarok (originally slated for that date) will come out on November 3, 2017. Furthermore, all of the non-Avengers: Infinity War films that follow will be moving their release dates, meaning we’ll now get Black Panther on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on November 2, 2018 and Inhumans on July 12, 2019.

Now the question is, what will the Marvel Cinematic Universe do to bring Spider-Man into their world? I, for one, can see a lot of possibilities. For one thing, most of the heroes we’re aware of in the MCU don’t have secret identities. People know Tony Stark is Iron Man, Steve Rodgers is Captain America and Thor is… well, Thor I guess. It’ll be nice to see Spider-Man as a more down to earth superhero coming into the larger scheme of that universe, especially in the wake of the events in New York. Spider-Man potentially coming in as a youthful bright eyed boy who has recently gained powers and feels lost will look up to the heroes that saved his town and surely want to emulate their actions. That idea could add more layers to the adaptation of the Marvel Comics universe Kevin Feige and his buddies have been formulating, seeing the effects of these heroes on a more cultural level that was hinted at in Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

As to which Spider-Man we’ll see, that’s still all up for debate. Whether or not Marvel & Sony will come to a choice as to either the traditional Peter Parker or take a risk with an adaptation of the multi-racial Ultimate Universe Spider-Man Miles Morales hasn’t been confirmed. Hell, they haven’t even confirmed if this new Spider-Man film will be yet another iteration of the origin story or any other bad decisions Sony may have and have final say over (like the potential retooling of their planned Sinister Six film), which I doubt most people would want at this point following the still fresh & lingering wounds of The Amazing Spider-Man reboot series. Still, given the chatter that was revealed during the Sony leak about the studio wanting to get away from the “general blah-ness of the films [they] produce“, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amy Pascal and the rest of Sony sat down and let the quality hit-makers at Marvel take the reigns in order to save their fledgling property, which could include daring new experiments like Miles Morales or a far more limited origin story for Peter. So many questions, so much potential… well, except for Andrew Garfield.

“First Zuckerberg, now this.”

What about the rest of you? Is Spider-Man teaming up with The Avengers a welcome addition or a bit too much? What Spider-Man should they go with and who should play the masked web slinger? Post your thoughts in the comments below!

Thomas Mariani is a born geek, with a bit of nerd mixed in here & there. A native of the (less) swampy parts of Florida, Thomas has always been a fan of films, television & other sources of media ever since he was a child, having been raised on Jim Henson, Star Wars and the basic cable cartoons of the ’90s & ’00s. He already has experience writing and podcasting about pop culture, which you can read/listen to on sites like Widescreen Warrior, TvTalk, Horrornews.net and Doc Rotten or on Twitter as @NotTheWhosTommy